I woke up this morning alone again — well, I shouldn’t say alone, as my dog and I were abandoned by my wife for the third night in a row. The other side of the bed was empty, the pillow gone like it had been intentionally removed.
There had been no argument the night before, no conversation to unpack. Just the underlying, awkward confirmation that my wife had chosen the couch because my snoring had once again made sleeping beside me the harder option. What’s different now is realizing that this wasn’t always the case. My snoring used to show up occasionally — usually after I’d had too much to drink — but lately it’s become constant. Something has changed, and I’ve started trying to pinpoint why. Is it weight gain? Exhaustion? Lingering congestion? Sinuses? Do we need cleaner air in the bedroom? I don’t know yet. What I do know is that this isn’t random anymore, and ignoring it feels a lot harder when the couch keeps filling the space I’m supposed to be occupying.
Somewhere along the way, my snoring stopped being a joke and started becoming a decision point. What used to be laughed off over coffee or shrugged away in the morning has slowly turned into something more practical, more structural. That’s what makes it uncomfortable. When change happens in increments, it’s easy to pretend it isn’t happening at all.
When a Joke Becomes a Line in the Sand
Lately, my brain’s been solving this snoring situation like it’s a reno project. I’ve actually started mapping out how I’d frame a wall down the middle of the bedroom. Add a door. Two zones. Boom. The room’s big enough. It could actually work. Two rooms in one. It’s not totally insane. It’s kind of feasible. But that’s not the point. The point is that my brain even goes there. That I start dreaming up solutions instead of facing what’s right in front of me.
I do this — solve one problem by creating another. Just because I can doesn’t mean I should. Logic gets tossed as soon as the solution becomes a Band-Aid. That’s been part of my wiring for a long time: try to fix something without actually going into it. But this isn’t a problem that needs drywall. It needs me to come back to reality. Because as satisfying as it would be to measure it out, hang the drywall, and have my own bedroom like I’m 15 again — which, let’s be real, would be insanely fun for both of us — that’s not solving anything. That’s just me avoiding the uncomfortable part with tools I know how to use. And seriously, who decided couples had to share a bed, anyway? It’s a disaster waiting to happen. If we ever built a house, we’d both have our own bedrooms. Just kidding. Not kidding.
Because let’s be real, this isn’t just about snoring. It’s about presence. It’s about how something small and manageable turns into distance when it starts happening all the time. One night on the couch turns into three. Then it becomes the new normal. And suddenly, what felt like a practical workaround starts to feel like separation. Physical space turns into emotional space when no one calls it what it is. That’s the part that gets me — how easy it is to drift when the reason sounds reasonable.
The Drift Between Practical and Personal
When I started in the fire service more than 20 years ago, sleep apnea machines were rare. Now, at least a third of every platoon uses one. That shift doesn’t signal weakness to me. It signals ownership. Firefighters finally acknowledging that sleep and recovery are not luxuries, but foundations. We’ve written about sleep apnea in CRACKYL, covered the science, the risks, the solutions. I’ve talked to firefighters who swear the machine changed their lives. Better sleep, better recovery, better moods. I nod every time. I agree every time. Then I do nothing.
Not because I don’t believe it. Because I don’t feel the consequences the same way.
I’m not the one lying awake at night. I’m not the one paying the price of broken sleep. The problem doesn’t show up and smack me in the face, so it stays low on my priority list. It becomes background noise. Something I’ll get to later. That’s the trap. The urgency belongs to someone else, so the responsibility feels optional.
When Someone Else Pays the Price
The guilt shows up occasionally. The rationalizing shows up more often. I tell myself I’m busy. I tell myself it’s manageable. I picture what it looks like — me tangled in hoses all day, tangled in a CPAP hose at night, the dog somehow claiming my side of the bed — and I push the whole thing aside again.
Firefighters are exceptional at responding to alarms. We are far less disciplined with slow burns. If something isn’t urgent, visible, or actively dangerous, we tolerate it. We normalize it. Over time, tolerance becomes policy. That’s how the couch clause gets written without anyone ever signing it.
All kidding aside, this is serious. Sleep apnea isn’t just loud breathing — it’s a real risk, and I’ve let it slide for too long. What started as a joke is now showing up in my marriage, and if I keep ignoring it, it’s going to show up in my health, too. So, I’ve made a doctor’s appointment. I’m starting the process. I’ll keep you posted on how it goes.
Deciding to Treat the Slow Burn Like an Alarm
The part that’s hard to admit is I’ve known this matters for a while. I know the research. I’ve talked to people. I’ve written about it. But I haven’t made it a priority, and that’s on me. I do this — I put things off, I get stuck in my head, I tell myself it’s not urgent because no one’s bleeding. Meanwhile, the people around me are dealing with the impact.
The truth is, I have a pattern. I try to fix things without really facing them. I think my way around it, or build something over it, or joke about it — anything but actually deal with it. But I’m learning (again) that you can’t get out of a problem with the same thinking that got you into it. At some point, you’ve got to stop solving and start sleeping.
